I teach. I love the act of teaching; I hate the job of teaching. I enjoy coming to work in the morning. I consider quitting teaching because of the bureaucracy. I would have quit teaching were it not for my students. Funny things happen.

For whatever reason, our local leadership council decided to propose a new bell schedule. This was introduced after the contract says the matrix must be completed (and even that hadn't been done!). We have the option of moving some times around (essentially a maintaining of the status quo) or completely re-doing the schedule into a 2x8 set-up. While I admit I like the idea of the 2x8, the fact that we had done precious little research was enough for me to say FUCK NO. While I did try to convince faculty of this, 2x8 won the day, and now we have to get people together, during furlough days, and technically summer vacation, to get them to create the matrix.

As a bonus, the assistant principal they put in charge of this is leaving the 24th, the assistant principal over counseling is also leaving that day, and the "computer guru" who helps with all that is officially on vacation beginning 3pm today.

While this would seem like a horrible work situation—and believe me it is!—there is a silver lining here: an opportunity for real collaboration. By bringing all department chairs and lead teachers together, we could actually craft a matrix we want! Instead of having a bunch of moppets running things, we could actually have some people with innovative ideas and solutions.

Oh theory. Always so much more appealing than the reality. So now, I have the brutal task of synergizing these people. Granted, I've never attempted this. And yet, pessimism is creeping in. it is 12:37am and I need to be up at 6:30am.